The conqueror Tamerlane; the Malfūẓāt memoirs are ascribed to him.
Tīmūr, often called Tīmūr-i Lang, Tīmūr the Lame (hence Tamerlane), is probably the most successful conqueror to arise in the Middle East after the rise of Islam. His family was Mongol and claimed descent from Čingīz Khān, both directly and through marriage.
Tīmūr first conquered a large inner-Asian empire. From this base he proceeded to Iran and neighboring countries, occupying some of his conquests, and in others—such as the Syrian portion of the Mamluk Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and northern India—leaving the defeated without occupation. (It was there that his descendants, known to the West as the Mughals, reigned from the sixteenth century until the British occupation.) He died in 807/1405 at the start of an expedition to conquer China.
Despite the devastation his campaigns caused, Tīmūr was a connoisseur of the arts and ordered that artisans and people of exceptional talent be spared and attached to royal service. A great period of cultural efflorescence followed. His fame was such that a purported autobiography was composed in his name which, though certainly not his own work, had an enormous career of its own. The work is known as Tuzūkāt-i Tīmūrī, also referred to as Malfūẓāt-i Tīmūrī or Vāqiʿāt-i Tīmūrī.